Music and Memories

Here is a post that is a bit of a departure from my usual, but its one of those you just have to put down as it sort of spills out all over and writes itself. I was headed into work this evening, driving the back country roads through Wild Peach on my way to work in Sweeny. It was a pretty normal evening with a sun that isn't quite yet setting and me trying to find what I wanted to listen to while I drive the half hour to work. I listen to audiobooks a lot on these drives, and podcasts too, but I have recently discovered Spotify. Spotify is an ap you can get for your phone where you can pull up most any music you can think of and listen to it. I have been listening to a lifetime worth of memories since I have had this ap. I have been back to being a little girl in my daddy's pickup truck listening to Linda Rondstadt on an 8-track tape in between his police radio and CB. Charley Pride also brought me back to Daddy's truck, and also my uncle's truck, who I remember loving the song "You're my Jamaica." Kenny Rogers and Neil Diamond were played most every Saturday morning for clean-the-house songs with my momma. She and I also listened to a lot of M-M-M-M- Mel Tillis. Dancing around the house together, as I recall. All I have to hear is a few bars of "Send Me Down To Tuscon" and I can see her dancing around and feel myself dancing with her, just like if I were about 10 years old again. And of course, there are the songs like Jose Cuervo by Shelley West and Afternoon Delight and Knock 3 Times that a kid sings at the top of their lungs, having no idea what in the world they are singing about. The soundtrack I found of The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas movie takes me back to girl scount camp where I sang those songs by the campfire to my friends...Wow. What a stellar example of a kid I was, huh! Then of course, there were the junior high years of trying hopelessly to be cool with my Stevie Wonder "I just called to say I love you" and my Madonna Like a Virgin LP that puts me back in my little upstairs bedroom in Kingwood listening to my stereo in a heartbeat. And 7th grade wouldn't have been 7th grade without Chicago 17. Along comes a Woman, Hard Habit to Break and You're the Inspiration with Peter Cetera's falsetto voice made my heart swoon, and somewhere inside when I hear it now, a 7th grade girl inside still swoons. Moving to Marble Falls just before high school is where I go with many of those same junior high songs--I had a little red cube radio with a tape deck on it, and when we moved I remember drinking Diet Dr. Pepper in the old blue cans while I sat on the deck of our condo with my red cube radio which was picking up the faraway Waco 100 station while I looked out over Lake LBJ on Horseshoe Bay. Pretty sure every boy I had a crush on had a specific song, but I won't name names here! I also had 45s from all of our drill team routines from the year I was a Mini Mustang. Everybody Wang Chung Tonight puts me right back in a tiny little purple skirt and support hose with bright Mary Kay makeup on every time! Then, at A&M I rediscovered country music, because the cute boys all seemed to like it and liked to go dancing at the Texas Hall of Fame. This new guy not many people had heard of named Garth Brooks was one of my favorites, and though I only went to the Dixie Chicken once, I heartily sang our changed up lyrics to Friends in Low Places where we "slipped on down to the Dixie Chicken" with the best of em. And of course, David Allan Coe's You Never Even Called me by my Name, which was like the national anthem at A&M is still one of my favorites, and takes me back to those fun times as a college kid.Then, I had a boyfriend who introduced me to Contemporary Christian Music like Steven Curtis Chapman, who I still like even now that he doesn't have that mullet anymore, and Michael W. Smith. This boy used to play Rockettown on the piano in the lounge area of the dorms we lived in and I of course would Swoon. Just hearing the chord progression of Rockettown takes me back to being that awkward girl who really liked that boy who could play the piano. Then, when I was living on my own working my first job out of college in Brenham, Texas, I had a serious relationship with a boy I had grown up with, and there are a host of songs that take me back to that time--most anything by Little Texas, The Bellamy Brothers, and a few others too. Those are bittersweet memories, of good times that didn't end the way I'd have chosen, but in hindsight know it was for the best and I can look back and be thankful for how it unfolded. And that brings me to this evening and where my Spotify playlist brought me to on my way to Sweeny tonight. I have a playlist of starred or favorite music that I haven't quite figured out how to edit yet, and one day I saved nearly a whole album of Caedmon's Call to this list. The year is probably 1996 or 1997, and I am about 24 years old. I have been heartbroken over this broken relationship and daily was pouring our my heart to the Lord to, as I wrote in my journal "put back together the pieces of my broken heart." I was convinced I would probably never find another who would love me and that I would feel lost the way I did forever. I also had an acute sense of having wasted time. I lived in this town for about a year, and who did I know? All my effort and heart had been focused on this relationship, and when it ended, I didn't have any close friendships that I had cultivated. I was very down for quite some time. And then, I was asked to accompany our youth group from the church I was a member at on a trip to Dallas because they needed another adult. I was single, young, had a weird work schedule and vacation time I coulds use. So, I agreed, thinking what did it matter...It wasn't like I would ever have a date to think about again ever. (crazy how the mind can drag you down!) So, I agreed to go on the trip, and discovered more about who the Lord created me to be through that time. I remember listening to Point Of Grace sing and starting to sing with them during the conference. I remember having fun making the kids laugh and thinking to myself that I was laughing too, which is something I hadn't done in a very long time. I fell in love with youth ministry, and with teenagers. I began to accompany the youth to anything and everything that I could, and spent my remaining time in that community pouring into the kids the Lord put into my path. Caedmon's Call was just beginning to be known around that time, especially in the Houston area since they helped lead worship at the Metro Bible Study. I really liked them, and felt pretty hip when I'd listen to them. And I suppose that is some of what I was feeling tonight on my way to work. I was taken back in time, about 15 years to a time when the Lord put back the pieces of my broken heart. He put them together in such a way that I was able to see more clearly who He had created me to be. I discovered a passion that would later lead me to jobs I adored with Young Life and with my beloved First Presbyterian Church in Lake Jackson. I felt hope, I felt loved, and I felt like I belonged. There have been a lot of defining moments in my life since that time of course, and music played a role in all of them in some way or another, I suspect. But on June 6, 2012 on the road through Wild Peach in Brazoria County, I got to be 24 years old again, feeling a newfound freedom in the Lord and a hope for the future again. I was a girl who had so many dreams and knew my times were in His hands, and it felt good. It was good to feel that way again. And I am ever thankful for His gift of music and the power it has to help us see a little of what time travel must be like. Thanks, God, for music. It is a pretty amazing gift!